www.markpiggott.com

Don’t worry (yeah, right) – not forever, just for a few weeks while I dive deep, deep into the murky, bracing waters - of “emptiness”. Spent the last few days tying up the loose ends – sorting out tax returns, resigning from Portsmouth, drinking, swimming, writing a strange short story about the night-time Finnish forests.

Now all is quiet, all is still – but for my brain. No excuses, nowhere to hide. I love this feeling: on the high board, arms out-stretched, holding breath, opening my eyes and looking down.

But before I dive – some random thoughts:

Had a strange email the other day – some oddball who claims to edit a well-known magazine, suggesting that if they mention my novel I won’t mind them publishing my feature for free. Um – how can I put this, you amateur, you cheapskate? I‘d sooner press “delete”...

Strange, that ship going down, more or less exactly where the boat in my novel sails, and in which the narrator fantasises about the ship capsizing:

“In the night I vomited again, more urgently, as if my body were attempting to dispel the remnants of my morality and taste, a deeper and browner texture; then I tried to sleep as the ship rolled and pitched. Sometimes it felt it must keep rolling till we were all upside down: the cabin would fill with water and the shampoo sachets and mint chocolates, the pillows and the bath-robes would dance in a dark underwater vortex as I gulped with disbelief...”

(from emptiness)

Finally watching The Sopranos, and from mister Gandolfini possibly the greatest acting performance of all time – here is an American hero who sleeps late, who then gets up and scratches his nuts...

No time, no time: time to go, to dive in (from this rickety burning bridge) and swim. 1,2,3...

(Happy Birthday to two heroes: to you, Mister Ali, and to you, Mister Bowie...)